April 13 2005

I think this is the project I'm most proud of so far. My roommate, my friends and I were all into gaming at the time I made this desk. We had three of our gaming PCs on separate desks in our kitchen and it just wasn't working, so I set about building a workstation-style desk to play on. I sized the desk up to the wheelchairs we use to sit in and filled the available wallspace. My first consideration was ease of construction. I hate working with wood, it never seems to come out straight (though I've managed to put out a good piece since this project). I considered steel, but I had no metalworking tools. PVC became my material of choice by elimination. I realized though that PVC was a great choice for this desk. It was light, easy to cut, easy to assemble and very difficult to mess up. This massive desk would end up being very light and spacious underneath because I used PVC. Home Depot where I am lacks in the PVC department, so I went to Lowes and started picking through the 2" bins. I came up with a very clever (If I may say so) design for the support structure. Sanitary unions look much cooler than regular unions by-the-way. I used two sheets of 3/4" MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard, this stuff is heavy as plywood twice as thick), gluing them together with contact cement. The top is a black veneer material, also applied with contact cement. I mated the support and top with cleanout bodies and plugs at the top of each post. The square tops on the cleanout plugs fit into square holes cut into the bottom sheet of MDF before the pieces were glued. The pieces could be, but aren't permanently affixed. This allows the top to be removed for easy relocation and also allows the height of each post to be adjusted slightly to compensate for uneven flooring. Final size: 32"x30"x8' Cost: $300